Now in its second year, the Kerry Agribusiness Milk Quality and Sustainability awards are once again showcasing excellence in milk production across the south west of Ireland. Each of the farmers that have been visited by the judges were shortlisted based on milk quality data and their carbon footprint. Each of these parameters are easily available from a desktop exercise. In essence, each of the candidates shortlisted are all excellent in terms of milk quality and carbon footprint.

However, there is more to sustainability than just carbon footprint and this is why the judges’ visit was so important.

This year’s line-up of judges includes Mary-Anne Hurley from Munster Technological University, John Murphy, milk quality and sustainability co-ordinator with Kerry Agribusiness, Sean McCarthy, services manager, Kerry Agribusiness, and myself, Aidan Brennan, representing the Irish Farmers Journal.

Sustainability parameters fall under a number of headings such as financial sustainability, animal husbandry, work/life balance and environmental sustainability.

The judges had to make an assessment of these on each farm visited – not an easy task considering the high calibre of all the farms visited.

One of the things that stood out to me was the awareness that each of the finalists had in terms of their responsibility as farmers and custodians of the land. They were aware of what they needed to do to improve their environmental sustainability and were putting this knowledge into practice.

All contestants were incorporating clover into swards as a means of replacing chemical nitrogen. Each one was using low emission slurry spreading and protected urea and each farmer had reduced their chemical nitrogen usage compared to two or three years ago.

All spoke of the importance of managing biodiversity on the farm, with protecting habitat areas high up on the agenda for all farmers.

How can these finalists improve? Firstly, it’s hard to improve on perfection, but if pressed I would say making incremental gains in grassland management and herd EBI will continue to reap rewards, even on farms already doing a good job.

Striking the balance between work/life-balance may be a challenge for some, especially for those at or below national average herd size, where justifying either full or part time labour is more of a challenge.

Picking a winner will be no easy task. The chosen family will get the top prize of €2,500, but the greater honour will be their role as the ambassador for Kerry Agribusiness in terms of milk quality and sustainability for 2022. In addition, they will get to host an open day on their farm later in 2022.

Evolve, Kerry Agribusiness’s new flagship sustainability programme, further rewards all Kerry Agribusiness suppliers for taking part in sustainability measures. The overall winner will be announced at an awards ceremony on 9 August.